A chance encounter

Melantha Argyris

The reason that Melantha does not spend much time in Cold Crescent is out of her control. The Garou notice her when she's there; they can't help but notice her. A cub staying in the dorms or a Cliath walking by or even the higher-ranked wolves; they turn their heads, they watch her round the corner, they sometimes sniff. The worst don't hide it at all, don't show any restraint. The better ones catch themselves, try not to. The best of them ignore her, treat her as they would any kinfolk. But it makes her anxious, coming here.

When she does, because of a mini-sept moot or a meeting or just regular patrols by her packmates, Melantha does laundry or watches t.v. but does not nap. She talks to people occasionally -- more than she used to, though that isn't saying much. She used to never talk to anyone, or go anywhere near them.

Sometimes she strolls the hallways, especially after night, when most of the building is empty. She doesn't steal anything or do anything untoward; she just looks around, imagining the lives in those offices. They are not like the life she grew up with, by far. They are also nothing like the lives she pretended to be a part of, which were so extreme and so gauche in their own ways. These people, though most of them are kin, mostly just seem normal. Well-off, maybe. But far from living in the woods, and far from living in palaces.

She walks by one office, one night, and sees a light on. She sees, through the glass, a woman she recognizes. And maybe that woman looks up, sees her. And then,

Melantha gives a tentative smile. Gives a wave.

Éva Illésházy

Empty buildings are never precisely empty. Not buildings like this one, even without considering the Sept. The floors are lit up and then singularly darkened again as the cleaning crews move up and down and down and up the structure. They do not start until well after sunset.

Sometimes, they work until dawn.

--

And there is always someone else here. Some deal, some negotiation, some dispute, some late-night this-job-is-ridiculous bullshit, some deadline that some office bee, somewhere is working late, or early, or forever to address.

--

Éva is here late more often than most.

She does not have a corner office, but it is a large space with floor to ceiling windows and a view of downtown, half-shaded by blinds pulled down enough to obscure a distinctive view of her from the street when hers in the only window on the floor so illuminated, not so much as to entirely obscure the glittering vista of downtown.

--

This is how she works, late:

she has taken off her suit jacket. Beneath, a sleeveless sheathe dress, but the air conditioning - even in a firm run by kinfolk and for the Nation - is so cold that after hours she has slung a pashmina around her shoulders. Cashmere.

and she has slipped off her shoes, barefoot beneath the desk, a pen not just in her hand, but between her teeth.

A container of yogurt and a cooling mug of tea arrayed around the files.

She glances up at the darkened hallway: the shadow of movement, or the halo of it. Returns the wave with a spare but genuine half-smile of her own. It is not tentative, but any warmth in it is banked, you see. Unleavened.

The lift of her chin serves as invitation.

"What has you up so late?"

Melantha Argyris

Upstairs there is at least one office always occupied. The new Warder is up there. Reverence of Dawn, Master of Challenges, is watching two Cliaths wrestle on the challenge floor to work out their rivalry and angst without bloodshed. There are lower offices, accountants and tech firms, who have a few people working late. And then there's Eva.

Melantha takes the upward nod as the invitation it is and gently, quietly opens the door. She steps inside, and shrugs. "I usually work closing shifts. And live with Erich and Charlotte. So I'm used to nights." There's a pause; there's more there, longer used-to-it-ness, but she doesn't mention it.

"I know I've seen you, but I'm not sure of your name. It's Eva, right? I'm Melantha."

Éva Illésházy

"Erich Reinhardt?" It is less question than it is confirmation. The barest suggestion of a lilt near the end that invites mere assent - or perhaps forbearance. "I know Erich. We've met a few times.

"And yes, I'm Éva. Illésházy, pleasure to meet you, Melantha." The pen she places down, then she is rising in greeting, comfortable enough given the hour or the space or the circumstances that she does not feel any need to toe on her heels and augment her height with a few additional artificial inches.

"I'm afraid I do not have much hospitality to offer. Half-eaten yogurt and cold tea, though sometimes Erich has been known to raid the staff's breakroom and find undiscovered goodies."

Melantha Argyris

Melantha just nods. That's the Erich. She crosses a bit closer, and glances at Eva's toes ever so briefly, and huffs a laugh. "That's kind of uncool of him," she says. "He should buy his own snacks."

There's no malice there, just a comment. And one she's not afraid to voice, not afraid of being disloyal or unsubmissive or threatened, in any way, for just saying what the hell she thinks. She looks around, then back to Eva. "Why are you here so late? You're working?"

Éva Illésházy

"Mmm." One of those indefinite noises, except it sounds precisely like assent. Éva makes no extraneous noises, nor does she slides unnecessary articulations into her speech. "The Firm supplies the food, a business expense. Even a Garou with an appetite is unlikely to bankrupt us.

"I did tell him to stay away from anything in the fridge with a name or initials on it.

"And, yes. I have a hearing early in the morning, then a flight to catch to Coeur d'Alene for an arraignment in the afternoon. Last night my son had a soccer game. This was the only time I could dig out to prep for either."

Melantha Argyris

These things -- the small noises, the measured smile -- Melantha understands. She feels strangely at ease here, with this woman that perhaps not many people feel at ease with. Melantha feels that she is familiar. Melantha reminds herself: her feelings aren't universal. Projecting them on other people is a good way to fool yourself.

Hurt yourself.

"Still. It's not like he's starving. Just seems tacky to me." Tacky. Not dishonorable or so forth, just tacky. As though that matters.

She smiles. "You have a kid? How old?"

Éva Illésházy

"Three," this brief curve of her mouth, elegant as the leading edge of a dying sun. Assured somehow, and wholly contained, and lovely, lovely. Éva's expression - when she speaks of her children - cannot be considered unguarded. She is always guarded; and yet, some things - some few things, some distinct, personal pleasures, both profound and minor, warm her in ways that are easy to read and hard to quantify.

She has that look over good wine, and whiskey, too. Or a lovely piece of fish, thoughtfully prepared, not for but by her. The feeling of potting soil between her fingers.

"Two boys and a girl, three, five going-on-six, and ten. Do you have any?"

Melantha Argyris

Melantha's look, which was pleased, grows. Brightens. She smiles a little broader, her bright eyes that much brighter. "Three?" As though she were personally affected by this in any way, personally happy to hear it. The eldest is a girl. Her brothers are three and almost-six.

Eva asks if she does and Melantha is caught off guard. She wears it all up front, every expression, every thought. She would not need to. She could hide it all. Maybe even from someone like Eva. But that is not Melantha. That is Celia. Maria. Antoinette-called-Toni. Peyton. Anyone but her. All the not-hers she has been.

"Me? No. I'm like twenty-four." A pause. "I'm twenty-five." Another pause. A dawning: "I forgot my birthday again. Crap."

Éva Illésházy

"I was in my thirties before I had Ellie." Éva returns, quiet. "I had cousins, though, who started when they were in their late teens."

Then, a quiet huff. A certain awareness, a certain hike of her sculpted brows as Melantha reveals that she has forgotten her birthday again, curses her lax memory.

"I haven't remembered mine in years." She has not had someone to remember her birthday in years, but she does not mention it, and it does not make her mournful, that. "If you like, I'll buy you a drink for your birthday when I am back in town."

Melantha Argyris

"Well, you have kids," she says. "Parents don't tend to think about their own birthdays." Eva offers to buy her a drink and Melantha laughs, and it's a pretty thing, shy almost, the way she ducks her head. At least it's genuine. She wouldn't look goofy, doing that, if it were an act. She'd look so sweet. She'd look delicious, being shy.

"I haven't thought about my birthday in a long time, either. It wasn't really a big deal, the way I grew up." She hasn't said yes or no to the drink idea. Because she's curious. Because she is asking: "So you're a lawyer? What kind?"

Éva Illésházy

"Criminal defense." Éva returns, a certain wry note rich in her voice. "I started out as a public defender, now I'm in private practice. I do some appellate work too."

Melantha Argyris

Melantha is quiet for a moment, hearing that. She catches the wryness, doesn't understand why it's there. She is watching Eva mindfully, thinking of her three children and how she doesn't mention a husband or a mate in any of that, as though -- if one exists -- she doesn't think to do so. She looks at her bare feet on the carpet and her cashmere pashmina.

"Well," she says, "I should let you get back to work. So you're not completely exhausted for your hearing because I distracted you or whatever. And... maybe when you get back I can visit again."

She smiles. "It was good to meet you, Eva," she says, by way of excusing herself.

All ripples and clouds

Éva Illésházy

A chance encounter in the Nordstrom's at Cherry Creek.

"And the alterations will be finished no later than the 11th," - the fragment of a conversation half-overheard as Avery is rounding a display of the fine fabrics in which bespoke garments may be made, near some corner the small 'salon' of the store's in-house tailor inhabits.

The author of that overheard piece of conversation is familiar. A tall(ish) woman made taller by dark professional heels 2 or 3 inches - no more - in height, who interrogates the consultant with whom she speaks in the slightly detached but still exacting tone of a professional interrogator. They are standing quietly back from a trifold mirror in which a young woman - a very young woman, a child really, though one on the edge of - on the edge of something - stands there in a semi-formal summer frock the color of a Caribbean sunset, while a Vietnamese man pins up the trailing hem of the dress.

There is not a cloud in the sky, but both the woman - and the girl - smell of Thunder.

Avery Chase

Somewhere in this Nordstrom's there are light fixtures that hang down in clusters of dodecahedrons, golden as grapes and angular as pixels. Beneath them are porcelain white mannequins without heads, with necks that elongate into spikes, which are horrific and Avery has been watching them carefully since she entered, waiting to see if they come to life and start trying to charge at shoppers, rhino-like.

Avery is running her hand along some silk, and then chiffon, and the chiffon reminds her of Flaming June. The orange has always reminded her more of August, though. She thinks she'll have a dress made from this, or something like it. She takes out her phone to capture a picture of the fabric.

In the back of her mind, she feels a rainstorm that is not the typical rush of thunder and water that accompanies late summer in Denver, and she knows the sensation. She knows the scent, as she turns, cocking her head. She spies the young, as one does when one is a protector, and her eyes drag slowly toward Eva.

The moon is heavy outside. Soon it will be full. Avery's thoughts are full, too: of the moonlight that is there even when it cannot be seen, and of the sunset orange of the chiffon, and of the sensation she gets when she sees the young-girl-little-woman.

"Eva?" she says. And it isn't just a confirmation; it is a request. The girl has Eva's look about her. And even Avery knows better than to dishonor a mother by coming too close when their offspring are near.

Éva Illésházy

Three women look up as one.

The kinswoman, with her dark, dark eyes.

The twenty-something saleswoman, whose attention is drawn by Avery's voice, and then quickly shunted away by something else about her that makes the young woman uncomfortable, that makes her feel like her body is trying to crawl outside of her skin.

And the girl.

The tailor does not look up, he just keeps working, pins in his mouth, fingers trailing thoughtfully, professionally, along the hem of the dress.

--

The girl.

Something about her is subtly lupine, even here. Even now. Both beneath and beyond the faint thread of the blood she shares with her mother. Something about the angle of her head, the alertness with which her attention catches on Avery, then shunts downwards, but never wholly away. Something about the living tension in her little body in that sunset dress. Something about the prickling awareness evident in every inch of her frame.

--

"Ms. Chase," the kinswoman returns, and quietly. Eyes briefly on the wolf, and then settled on her daughter. There is an equanimity to the greeting and perhaps a hint of warmth. "My daughter Ellie was asked to be the flower girl in a cousin's wedding in New York in two weeks. Do you think she'll suit?"

Avery Chase

Avery just laughs. It's a bright thing, a bright sound, like crystals full of champagne clinking together. It's midnight, it's New Year's, and all is cold and dark around but that laugh is a shining, delightful thing regardless.

"Miss Ellie," she says, addressing the girl rather than her mother, "you are, of course, the very picture of a flower girl. Are you looking forward to it?"

Éva Illésházy

The girl holds herself, you see, quite still beneath Avery's regard. Animal awareness frames her body; something about the stillness and the way it suggests not rest but motion, and it is bright enough in the girl that even the tailor with the mouth full of pins stops for a moment, glances up at Avery, then over at Éva, then back to the girl.

Sliding a pin out of his mouth.

Ellie shakes her head. Slightly, but: no.

She glances at her mother who is both watching her and watching over her, and looks back at Avery.

"I haven't seen them since I was a baby. Rosa says they want to get a look at me."

Avery Chase

Ellie shakes her head. Avery's brows draw together. She gives a sparing glance toward Eva, just before, but then takes a few steps closer so they're not standing a gulf apart, talking across the chasm. She looks curious. Which is honest, because she is.

"I suppose that's true. It's quite easy to get a look at someone when they're walking down an aisle alone." She pauses, both her steps and her speech, thoughtful. "Forgive me if I'm prying, but since you aren't looking forward to it... are you dismayed at the prospect?"

Éva Illésházy

Éva has opened her mouth. There was something on her tongue or the cusp of her breath, which goes unspoken. Her dark eyes are lingering on her daughter, searching, you see, with a slight remove and a banked awareness and a drawn concern.

Her attention flickers to Avery as Avery approaches, but otherwise she's quiet.

--

Ellie, for her part - oh, Ellie. Thoughtful child. She considers the question for a long moment, and she must be moving something inside her body, turning something over, assessing , arriving at a conclusion. Then, she shakes her head.

"No." A little frown, as her dark brows draw together. "I'm nervous, not dismayed." The smallest cluck, her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

"And I think it's rude. To want to get a look at someone. If I wanted to get to know someone I'd write them a letter. Or ask them to dinner."

Avery Chase

Avery is, perhaps surprisingly for someone of her prestige and general removed-ness from the world and its peasants, very perceptive. She is warm. She cares. She pays attention and has an almost pretenatural insight into both her surroundings and those people around her. But right now, she is focusing those crystalline blue eyes on Ellie, and not Ellie's mother, and she misses the opening of the mouth, the almost-words. She somehow does not miss the concern.

Avery is a wolf. And she is a wolf, white and powerful, walking slowly towards a woman's child.

She is very aware of that.

--

Avery's eyes, so stark and dark, hop up. She is -- someone older might register -- a touch impressed, and it's not the fake 'oh my you're so smart!' that adults give children. It is genuine. You can tell, because it is so subtle. "Well," she says, considering this herself, "I have been a flower girl before, and if I recall correctly, it is usually a tedius and short-lived ordeal followed by what seems like a thousand years of being photographed. If the bride thinks of it, she will often let the flower girl and ring bearer be seated in the front rows after performing their duties so that they needn't stand for the whole ceremony."

She shifts her bag, a white leather Michael Kors with black piping and a gold lock dangling from the strap, to her elbow, putting her phone away finally. "Nothing at all to be nervous about, in hindsight. Difficult to apply hindsight ahead of time, though."

Her eyes come back to Ellie, her back straightening. "As for rudeness, I cannot account for that. You may, if you like, try to cultivate a forgiving attitude towards adults, many of whom have a tendency to forget that children are merely people who lack a certain depth and breadth of experience. Some do tend to forget that children already have their own ideas and opinions and can be perfectly brilliant conversationalists if you give them a moment to speak. But I suspect your Rosa may have merely been employing a turn of phrase. Inviting you to the honor -- and it is an honor, if a dull one -- of joining someone's wedding party is just the pretense of occasion to see you, and meet you, and discover what sort of person you have become. In a way they did invite you to dinner."

Avery gives a small shrug after a moment of thought. "Perhaps they thought that the opportunity to wear a fine dress and stand in a titled position of esteem at a community ritual would be a suitable gift to offer, in exchange for your company. But I am only speculating, and regarding perfect strangers to me, at that." She gives a small huff of laughter at herself. "Now who is rude?" Also at herself, dismissively.

Éva Illésházy

Avery comments that it is difficult to look back in hindsight ahead of time and Ellie nods quite seriously and does interject - conversationally - "That's because it's looking back at what's already happened." She has a small bow mouth, that flattens when she goes thoughtful, rather than dipping into a frown, and here and now it flattens. "I guess you could ask yourself what it would be like when you're done and looking back, but then it is still just your imagination."

There is one other small interjection, when Avery says your Rose, Ellie inserts, "She's my Baka, except she's not really mine. She's my brothers' Baka."

--

After that, Ellie is quiet. She takes in what Avery has to tell her and Avery can read that consideration in both Ellie's brows and in her body. The tailor has finished hemming the garment and is straightening it around Ellie's knees, pulling it this way and that. Urging her to lift her arms and turn around, which she does, and as she does so she glances at her mother, then looks back to Avery.

Something definitive about the girl's mouth.

"Maybe you're right. And also if I think they are rude before then maybe I would just see rude no matter what. It's hard to stop thinking a thought once you've had it, though. And I've already had that thought."

--

"Ms. Chase," Éva interrupts here. Her voice low, and yet still, somehow, carrying. "I have not had a chance to thank you for your assistance in the park the other week. I promised Ellie gelato when her fitting was done. Would you like to join us?"

Avery Chase

"I'm afraid I don't know what at Baka is," Avery says, with some note of apology but not embarrassment in her voice. Perhaps Ellie will tell her.

Ellie gets back to her fitting, while Avery murmurs a mild apology to the tailor for any interruption. She holds her bag in front of her now, the handle clasped gently in both hands, her frame long and steady and elegant. Classic. She listens, attentive, when Ellie speaks again. "You are quite right," she tells the girl, "on all counts."

Her eyes move to Eva, and she smiles. "Oh, think absolutely nothing of it. It is my calling," and duty. She does not call it a pleasure. "I had heard of your resourcefulness and bravery before, but that was my first chance to see it in play. You honor your house,"

and by this she means her family, and her tribe, and the nation, their people. And Eva herself, as though your house encompasses it all.

She brightens. "Oh, that would be lovely. I love the way it looks in the bins. All ripples and clouds. Miss Ellie," and when she says this, she does not mean it as condescension. She uses it as a term of respect for someone she does not know well. Someone she has not fought alongside, like Eva, who used to be Ms. Illeshazy and nothing else. Someone who has every reason to fear her and perhaps could use a few extra reasons to feel respected by her. Miss Ellie, "Would that be all right with you?"

Éva Illésházy

Éva's mouth ticks wider when Avery praises her resourcefulness and bravery. It is the word bravery that pulls the expression - unbidden - out of her body, onto her mouth. Some twist of mild irony she tastes the same way one tastes iron: the tinge of it loose on the tongue.

"Baka means grandmother," Ellie is explaining, in her rather serious and assured way. "In Croatian. Rosa's parents were from Croatia. My mother's from Washington, D.C. but her father was born in Hungary. But I have Rosa's same name because Andraj adopted me."

Avery asks Ellie if that would be all right with her, and Ellie's dark, solemn little eyes track toward Éva in that moment. Touch there, thoughtfully, then glance back toward Avery. The girl nods, once, seriously and virtually echoes back to Avery, "OKay. I think that would be all right with me."

Before she turns around to disappear back into the dressing room, to change into her street clothes. Her cowboy boots despite the fact that it is mid-summer, and her jeans and her stripped purple t-shirt, ready for gelato.

As they wind their way out of Norstrom's, Ellie takes Éva's hand. Éva squeezes her daughter's hand, and savors every moment. She knows she will not be able to hold her daughter's hand for very much longer.

friday night lights

~cheep~

It's well past the summer solstice and so the nights are getting longer, but in Denver they aren't getting any cooler. When night falls the heat clings to the pavement, seems to hover in the trees. And speaking of trees...

There is a park. Washington Park is a good long stretch of green with a number of trees and a couple of wannabe lakes. The rec center is closed, the tennis courts are dark. The park is empty.

Or at least, it appears to be.

[aight, hit me with your best Percept roll! Alert diff +2, PU base diff!]

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Per+PU]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Avery Chase

[perception (insightful) + primal urge]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 3, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1

Éva Illésházy

perception (3) + primal urge (3)

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

~cheep~

Avery and Eva can hear the sound of summer cicadas...a lot of them. The dry rattle sound is coming from within the park, of course, from the trees. The sound is unnatural only because they both know that while Colorado does have the insects from time to time, this is wrong somehow. The sound is too loud or coming from too many insects.

Éva Illésházy

Friday nights should be family nights but a day in the courtroom and an early morning (4:45 a.m.) flight to the east coast mean that she is spending the night in town. Ellie is away at camp, anyway, and the boys have their grandmother and their bedtime and their routine. They'd be asleep before she made it home tonight, and asleep still by the time she had to climb out of bed. So: the condo in the city and an evening spent not sipping cognac in a small upscale bar but: outside, running until the beating of her heart drowns out everything else in her mind.

The park is not entirely silent, then. From somewhere the drumbeat of her footsteps on the jogging path.

Despite the heat, she wears a loose jacket over her running gear.

She is a Shadow Lord.

She is never unarmed.

--

It isn't even that she hears the dry rattling sound, precisely. That's not it at all. It is that she senses it, somehow and somewhere beneath her skin. The blood of the wolves in her, even if she does not and never will change, the way they do.

Tongue against the roof of her mouth, a dry and sharpened awareness about her in the gloaming. Her footsteps slow but do not yet settle into a walk. That deliberate pacing of someone moving at half-pace, cooling down maybe, but still intent on movement.

Attention fixed warily on the trees.

Éva Illésházy

Per + Alertness

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Avery Chase

These days, Avery is not wearing her usual dedicated yoga gear to patrol: black pants, white tank, black jacket, sneakers, hair in a ponytail. That is to say, she is wearing entirely different yoga gear, made up of grey capris and a sleeveless but not-quite-tank-top sports top of purple and gray and a bit of hot-pink piping. Her hair is still in a ponytail and her feet are still in sneakers and that ugly scar she does not like to think about is hidden so she does not face daily questions about its origin or stares that ask without speaking.

Avery is in a boundlessly good mood, it seems, and a bit sweaty from jogging around Wash Park in the earlier hours of the evening when the sun was still high, not quite searing towards the horizon. She's chatty: did Javed know that Calden's border collie had puppies? And did Javed know that she's adopting a pair of them, because with Scent of Man dogs seem to adore her and Patches is such a sweet animal and did Javed know that Calden got a condo in the city did he know that Avery sort of maybe bought it and had her family's new business -- that would be Chase Custom Homes, which existed beforehand but was purchased recently -- renovate it to Calden's style and DID JAVED KNOW that her brother is starting to look at colleges ALREADY she can't beLIEVE it.

Well, to be fair, that was all in the first half hour or so of the patrol. She's stopped jogging and she has gotten quieter as they've neared the park, walking with her packmate. After they've rounded a few paths she hesitates, frowning, turning to Javed. "Goodness, those cicadas are loud this year. Normally if they're going to be loud they're loud all summer, but this is the first I've heard them quite like this." Her frown doesn't abate. She has a prickling feeling up the back of her neck; she has an unsettledness about her.

Avery Chase

[perception + pu]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

Avery Chase

[that was alertness, not primal urge.]

Javed Anubis-Sight

Javed is...Javed. The months since he has been out and about haven't changed him much. He wears the same jacket, the same complete outfit. His demeanor is still largely impassive, calm but alert. He is the quiet shadow moving alongside Avery's brightness.

He listened to what she says, taking it all in. He didn't know about Calden's border collie, nor the adoption, nor any of the rest of it. It may look to others as if he is uninterested and just letting the Silver Fang talk at his side, but Avery and anyone else who might know him well would recognize such is not the case. He is listening, and he has interest in what she has to say. He offers a word here and there but is otherwise quiet, with no news of his own. But that's just the way it is and his own isolation does not preclude him from showing interest in hers.

When she hesitates, so does he. The two eyes (one useless) narrow, and he looks around. "Yes," he intones quietly in his gravelly baritone. "There is something not right here. They likely recognize it."

His eyes (eye) passes over the vicinity, trying to get a sign of what that might be.

[Per+Alert, +1 diff)

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

~cheep~

[noticing things]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

~cheep~

They each circle around or through the park in their own way and for their own reasons. Packmates sharing in protecting their city, a kinswoman keeping up her health and feeling the movement of her limbs one more time before she flies across the country.

They all notice it to one degree or another. Something is wrong with the trees. Javed, with only one good eye, notices only that the trees of the trunks appear misshapen. They seem thicker than they should be.

Eva catches movement, knows that there is something there. On the trees. A trunk not far from her appears to shift so subtly that were she not already on the alert she would have missed it entirely.

It's Avery who sees what it is.

What they are.

Pressed against the trunks of the trees, almost perfectly camoflauged. The shape of insectoid wings. Something moving, creating that dry-rattle sound. And each of them nearly as large as a Crinos Garou. They most certainly are not cicadas.

Suddenly the park goes completely, eerily quiet. The trees still, the very air ceases to shift through their leaves.

Then, one by one by one by one, they move. Wings flexing, spindly legs bending as they press closer to the trunks before they launch themselves several feet into the air. Where they turn, and they approach the kinswoman.

[you have one round to react and then inits! get your prep rolls in now, folks!]

Avery Chase

Every time they speak -- and let's be honest, it's infrequent: Avery is Master of Challenges, Avery stays involved in her family's businesses, Avery has a boyfriend who lives up in the middle of goddamn nowhere, and Javed is a Silent Strider and they would not have ever entered into the bond of pack if they weren't both aware that theirs would not be a relationship of daily, constant contact -- Avery encourages Javed to use the retreat near Roxborough. Take Ruby there. Rest there. Eat there. Train there. She tells him that the space set aside for her -- an 'office' of sorts -- in Cold Crescent should be territory he considers his own as well as hers, that he can go there for privacy whenever he likes.

Sometimes they go weeks, even turns of the moon, only seeing one another at the monthly moot. And every time, Avery is as happy to see him as ever, as eager to fill him in on what's been going on in her life, as effervescent about her encouragements to tell her everything. They are very different. And Javed takes in stride, perhaps more than most, the times when Avery does not want to talk, does not want to see or be seen, does not want to interact.

They both pause on the trail, listening. Looking around. Avery's back is tensed; she forcibly relaxes it, rounds her shoulders down, takes in a deeper breath. She sees Eva across the way and her eyes sharpen as they run over the tree trunks. And then, just in case something is watching and that something can think like a predator, she lifts a happy and unconcerned arm and waves. "Hello, Eva!" she calls, while she reaches out and touches Javed's arm, squeezing his forearm tightly as she waves happily at the Shadow Lord.

"There are insectoids the size of warforms against the tree trunks," she whispers to him. "They're --"

The park goes dark. The insects lift and head towards Eva. Avery just about has a coronary. She drops to all fours in a moment, beginning the shift to another form: larger, heavier, covered with silvery-white fur and equipped with vicious fangs.

[slow-shifting to Hispo

-1 WP for Resist Pain

-1 G for Luna's Armor. Stamina + Survival]

Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )

~cheep~

[mine?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Éva Illésházy

A low breath channeled out through pursed lips. The Shadow Lord catches a glimpse of the Garou in her peripheral vision: aware of their presence. Their movement. The familiar flag of Avery's brilliance against the background. This is frame around which she focuses on the trees.

--

She takes her eyes off the movement of the trees long enough to mark the exit routes. Those that offer cover other than the suspect trees. Those free of obstruction, the dubious safety of open ground. When Éva glances back - the creatures are already moving. She curses softly beneath her breath, in a language that is less than half-remembered, and then only from childhood. Dark gaze locked onto the creatures lifting from the trees -

Hello Eva!

- reaching back for her weapon with her right hand even as she lifts the left to wave back. Allowing the supple thread of her own smile - rather more quiet than Avery's - to spread across her mouth.

[Draw weapon. If there's time she'll shoot.]

Éva Illésházy

(Manipulation + Subterfuge: my smile is totally convincing.)

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1

Javed Anubis-Sight

The Strider has in fact been making some use of the retreat. Not as much as others might in his situation; he does tend to remain in the city, moving from location to location, or staying at the Cold Crescent. But he does utilize the property, and perhaps more than might be expected. Chalk it up to his Strider nature that he simply cannot rest in one place constantly, and he would even be hard pressed to disagree with that. But it's not so simple as that for him, not just a matter of a tribal curse. He seems aloof and mercurial in his movements to some perhaps, but there is a system. Much like any patrol they might do, he has his own pattern in place and it suits him well for his needs.

The Iranian's head turns, following Avery's attention to the Shadow Lord kinfolk. Ms. Illeshazy. There is not a smile that plays over his lips, no happy wave, but he is content to see the woman and he offers her a nod before he takes listen to Avery and nods. It is not known information, but he had noted the trunks and that allows him to know why they seem wrong.

He doesn't respond because before Avery gets her words out the creatures are moving. With a low growl that quickly rises even before he begins his transformation, he's on the move. The Silver Fang chooses Hispo, but for Javed it is his birth form. It is his most natural form of movement and it allows him to dip to the ground, scraping his claws over stones and gravel to sharpen them to a supernaturally fine point as he takes off running to try and intercept before they get to the kinfolk.

[-1 Rage for Razor Claws, shifting to Crinos]]

Avery Chase

[INIT +9]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Init +17]]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

~cheep~

[1-5: +8]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Éva Illésházy

+7

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )

~cheep~

[round one: FIGHT!]

Javed 23

Avery 19

Bug 1 18

Eva 16

Bug 2 12

Bug 3 11

Bug 4 9

Bug 5 9

Declares:

Bug 5: 1a: reroute to Javed, 1b: Stab!, 1c: Stab!

Bug 4: 1a: reroute to Javed, 1b: Dodge!, 1c: Grab!

Bug 3: 1a: reroute to Avery, 1b: Stab!, 1c: Stab!

Bug 2: 1a: reroute to Avery, 1b: Stab!, 1c: Stab!

Éva Illésházy

Eva: [1. Head-shot on bug + WP.]

~cheep~

Bug 1: 1a: reroute to Avery, 1b: Dodge!, 1c: Grab!

Avery Chase

[Reflexive: -1 WP for Lambent Flame. Silvery light for 30m. +1 diff to hit Avery in close-range.

1a. Oh, you're too far away to hit me right away? Spending a turn screaming vengeance and justice from my righteous maw. -1 R, Eagles Beak.]

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[1a: CHARGE

1b: Claw Bug #5

R1: Claw Bug #4]]

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Rawr rawr. Dex+Brawl, -3 for split, diff 5 for Razor Claws]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 3, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Damage +2 (Razor Claws) +1 (Claw Attack) +1 (Succ))]]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 9 )

~cheep~

Bug 5: Soak???

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

~cheep~

[1a: reroute to Avery, 1b: Nothing to Dodge!, 1c: Grab! str+brawl -3]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Avery Chase

[strength + brawl to resist that silliness!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Éva Illésházy

Eva: Headshot, bug 2. Difficulty +2 (called shot), Spending WP.

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 6 ) [WP]

Avery Chase

[holding roll for next round unless that bug gets ganked.]

Éva Illésházy

Damage 4 + 5 successes + 3 headshot.

Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

~cheep~

[bug 2: Soak???]

Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (5, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

~cheep~

Bug 2: 1a: reroute to Avery, 1b: Stab?!, dex+brawl -4, diff -2 (immobilized target), +3 (reasons)]

Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

~cheep~

[dam: str+1 (stabby legs) +1]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 4 )

~cheep~

[re-roll attack, -1 die because damage, holy crap woman get your head in the game!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

~cheep~

[dam for realz!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Avery Chase

[soak +4]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

~cheep~

[1c: same, -1 for split]

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 8) ( success x 1 )

~cheep~

[damage]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Avery Chase

[*cracks neck*]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

~cheep~

Bug 3: 1a: reroute to Avery, 1b: Stab! -4 for split, +1 diff (the moon is too bright but i loves it soooo @_@), -2 (immobilized target)]

Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (2, 6, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

~cheep~

[damage: +1+3]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )

Avery Chase

[soak!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 )

~cheep~

Bug 3: 1c: Stab!

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (2, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

~cheep~

[damage!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

Avery Chase

[soak!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )

~cheep~

Bug 4: 1a: reroute to Javed, 1b: Nothing to Dodge!, 1c: Grab!: -5 (split)

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 8) ( success x 1 )

~cheep~

Bug 5: Not enough dice to move, Rage round!

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Strength+Brawl]]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

~cheep~

Round 2: FIGHT

Javed 23 OK

Avery 19 OK

Bug 1 18 OK

Eva 16 OK

Bug 2 12 (2L, blinded&disoriented)

Bug 3 11 OK

Bug 4 9 OK

Bug 5 9 (6A)

Declares:

Bug 5: Stab!

Bug 4: 1a: Dodge!, 1c: Grab again!

Bug 3: 1a: Stab!, 1b: Stab!

Bug 2: 1a: Stab!, 1b: Stab!

~cheep~

[Bug 5 is stabbing Javed, 4 is dodging and grabbing Javed, 3 and 2 are on Avery again because I accidentally deleted their targets]

Éva Illésházy

Eva: 1. Headshot, Bug 3.

~cheep~

Bug 1: 1a/b: Stab/Stab Avery!

Avery Chase

[1a. GET OFFA ME - strength + brawl

1b. Eat Bug 1

R1. Om nom nom on Bug 1, switching to Bug 3 if it goes down, Bug 2 if 3 is down.]

Javed Anubis-Sight

1a: Claw Bug 4

1b: Claw Bug 4

R: Claw Bug 5

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Dex Brawl: Politely and manually aerate Bug 4's intestines. Diff 5, -2 for split]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

~cheep~

Bug 4: RUDE??? dodging, dex -2 (split)

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Damage +2 (Razor Claws) +1 (Claw) +2 (successes)]]

Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

~cheep~

Soak???

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Dex+Brawl -3 for split, diff 5]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Damage +2 (Razor Claws) +1 (Claw) +3 (successes)]]

Dice: 13 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 10 )

~cheep~

The Garou and the kinswoman attack, and so far as they can tell the insects are ordinary, yet greatly oversized insects. Eva shoots the one and a portion of its bulbous, faceted eyes tears away to land in the grass. Javed attacks and he can feel solid flesh-like substance dragging against his claws every time.

Every time except the last. His claws slice through the thorax of one of the insects and suddenly there is a short, but bright burst of light as the insect shatters into a million glittering, glowing pieces before it disappears altogether.

Avery Chase

[1a. Remember this roll?

Avery Chase @ 8:00PM

[strength + brawl to resist that silliness!]

Roll: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )]

Avery Chase

[you know what, delete that.]

Avery Chase

[1a. strength + brawl to throw the bug off her back. -2 for splits.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Avery Chase

[1b. nomming the bug. dex + brawl -3 for splits.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 2, 5, 7) ( success x 2 )

Avery Chase

[damage. strength + 1 + hispo + hispo bite + 2 (eagle's beak) + suxx -1]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 5 )

~cheep~

Bug 1: Soak???

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

~cheep~

Bug 1: Stab Avery! -2 for split, -1 for ow

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

~cheep~

[damage!: +1+2]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Avery Chase

[soak!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 7 )

~cheep~

Bug 1: 1b: -3 -1

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

~cheep~

[damage!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Avery Chase

[soak!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Éva Illésházy

Eva: Headshot, bug 2 (the uninjured and not-blind bug attacking Avery). +2 dif

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Éva Illésházy

Damage! 4 + 2 + 3 (last ruling for headshot!)

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 )

~cheep~

Bug 2: Uh...maybe?

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

~cheep~

[Bug 2: incapped!]

~cheep~

Bug 3: 1a: Stab Avery! -2 for split

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

~cheep~

[dam!]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

Avery Chase

[soak!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

~cheep~

Bug 3: 1b: Again! -3

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

~cheep~

[dam!]

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Avery Chase

[noooo]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )

~cheep~

Bug 5: Ennh! Stab? -5 for ow

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

~cheep~

dam?

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Soak]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Claw]]

Dice: 9 d10 TN5 (3, 3, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 7 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Damage]]

Dice: 16 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 9 )

~cheep~

Bug 5: glitter-splosion fade to nothing

Avery Chase

[r1 - bug 1!]

Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Avery Chase

[damage!]

Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

~cheep~

Bug 1: soak??

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Avery Chase

[stamina]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

~cheep~

Round three: FIGHT!

Javed: 23 OK

Avery: 19 (1L???????? OK)

Bug 1: 18 (3A)

Eva: 16 OK

Bug 2: 12 (incapped)

Bug 3: 11 OK

Declares!

Bug 3: Someone keeps shooting my friends?? 1a: Relocate to Eva, 1b: Stab!, 1c: Stab! (ahahahaha ahhaha hahahahaha)

Bug 2: Twitch on the ground

Éva Illésházy

Eva: Headshot on bug 3!

~cheep~

Bug 1: 1a/b/c: Stab Avery!

Avery Chase

[1a.

1b.

R1. -- all bites. Starting with Bug 3, then 1, then 2 in that order.]

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[1a: Claw Bug 3

1b: Claw Bug 3

1c: Claw Bug 1

R: Claw Bug 1]]

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Claw #2, -3 dice for split, diff 5]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (3, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Damage]]

Dice: 14 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

~cheep~

Bug 3: Soak???

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Attack! -4 dice, diff 5]]

Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (2, 4, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Damage]]

Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )

~cheep~

Bug 3: Soak???

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Attack #1, -5 dice]]

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Javed Anubis-Sight

[[Damage]]

Dice: 14 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )

~cheep~

Bug 3: NOOOO I WANT TO LIIIIIIIIIIIIVE

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Avery Chase

[1a. - 2]

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (3, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

Avery Chase

[damage part A BECAUSE MATH.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Avery Chase

[damage part B]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

~cheep~

[soak???? vs. 7]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

~cheep~

Bug 3: glittersplodes and fades away

~cheep~

[Scratch that! Bug 3 is still up but barely, gonna decide all of it's move is going to be trying to get to Eva

Bug 1 is slightly better off.]

Avery Chase

[1b. - 3, bug #3]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Avery Chase

[that was diff 5. does not alter suxx

damage!]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

~cheep~

Bug 3: NOW it glittersplodes and fades away

~cheep~

Bug 1: 1a: Stab Avery! -3, -2

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

~cheep~

dam!

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Avery Chase

soak!

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 5 )

~cheep~

1b: -1 ENGH! STABBING YOUUUU

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

~cheep~

dam!

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Avery Chase

[soak!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

Éva Illésházy

Shoot Bug 1.

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Éva Illésházy

Damage! 4 + 3

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

~cheep~

1c: NO GUTS NO GLORY ONE LAST SHOT

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (4, 5) ( fail )

~cheep~

And now the soak!

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

~cheep~

There is a moment where Avery and Eva and even Javed pretend that Everything is Cool. They are just three people walking the paths at night, not tasty morsels or potential threats or whatever it is these insects with their insect-brains consider the trio.

If they were the kinds of creatures to be swayed by such things, then they would be completely fooled by Avery's wave and Eva's returned smile. But when has a mosquito ever been swayed from the blood of humans because of a charming smile?

These are not mosquitos. They do not have the long curling snout of a mosquito, so they are not going to stab the Garou and the kinfolk in hopes of turning them into living slurpee cups. They have large pincers for grabbing and holding. They have rather elongated forelegs that taper into sharp, sharp points. They wave these limbs idly as they going winging toward the kinfolk, but.

It is Avery's moon in the sky tonight. Luna's face is cut nearly perfectly in half, and she shines her blessed light down on her daughter so that Avery seems to glow in the darkness. The light moves on her nearly shadowless, pure white fur. Then her fur is no longer nearly shadowless, and she is no longer seeming to be anything. She is glowing, and she is dire-formed, and she is going to give them a piece of her mind.

It is a combination of that light that she emits, that grows all the brighter when she activates her Lambent Flame, and her snarling, snapping growls that draws the attention of the insects away from the kinswoman. They hover for just a moment, wavering. But the allure of a more grounded moon-glow is too strong to resist. The change direction and...

It happens in a flurry of motion, wings, claws, teeth, and gunshots. With one rake of his claw, Javed nearly knocks one of the insects from the sky. It waves, but it remains airborne as its brother clamps its pincers around the werewolf's neck and shoulders.

Those that cluster around the Silver Fang have a hard time. They know on some beastial level that at the heart of that glow is not the gentle moon that guides them, but they still can't bring themselves to strike it. One manages only a slight hold on her. Their waving legs glance away from Avery's glowing fur as she continues to snarl, the fury she learned from Eagle sharpening her already so-sharp teeth. The better to rend them with.

A shot rings out (or is it silenced?) into the night. Never forget the kinfolk present. Never forget that she is a granddaughter of Thunder. Éva Illésházy may not be able to shift like a Garou, but that does not mean she is without her own weapons. Unholstering her weapon, the cool, calm, collected lawyer levels her gun at one of the insects, aiming for its head. She does not manage to kill it, but what she does do is interesting. The bullet tears away a piece of its eye and it...wavers. It...weaves and wobbles and when it tries to strike at Avery again it misses her. Swinging back the other way, it tries again and merely ruffles her fur.

All any of them do is ruffle her fur. The Fostern Philodox is unflappable and unstoppable. She breaks the hold on her easily then whips to the side to catch the insect that held her in her jaws and snap. Javed breaks free of his captor, as well, and destroys one of the insects which hovers by him. There is that bursting glow, but ah, no time to ponder. No time to investigate. One insect being obliterated does not stop or even slow the assault of the others.

Despite their size and resilience, they are still insects. They are very fast, but against Garou? They are not so strong. Eva and the Garou are tireless, relentless. Once, barely, one of the insects manages a scrape through Avery's fur, drawing little more than what amounts to a scratch. It's not enough to slow her down, it's barely deep enough to be noticed, and within seconds is healed away completely.

The insects, if they have much of an intelligence at all, must be realizing that this attack is futile. These are no mere humans in need of punishing for some nameless crime against the Wyld. They are Garou, and they defend the people of this city from all threats. Even strange ones like these overlarge insects. They don't realize, though. They are spirits of the Wyld's wrath, all they know to do is attack, attack, attack.

And soon enough all they can do is explode and disappear. One after the other after the other, the Garou obliterate the insects with the help of Eva Illeshazy.

And then there are two. Javed rakes his claws through one. Avery neatly snips the last. There is a final burst of light as the spirits' hybrid corporeal forms are ripped apart and they find themselves released back into the Wyld. Then the air is still and quiet.

Until it's not. When the cicadas begin their chirping - real cicadas with their real and low rattle - it is a dull murmur. Background ambience for a warm and gentle summer evening.

Avery Chase

At first, there is a swell of pride and pleasure when the bug-things turn away from Eva and flock towards her. Avery is not afraid. Avery swore an oath -- her word is her vow -- that she would be more careful. She hasn't, in her excitement to share with Javed tales of puppies and real estate, gotten around to mentioning the minotaur-like thing that gored gaping wounds into her torso and very. nearly. killed her. This time, she put on her armor before marching into battle, even though it cost her precious time later as she sharpened her fangs for vengeance.

Gunfire isn't often heard in or around Wash Park. It's not that sort of neighborhood, but the blackness that descended and the tendency for all parks in America to turn into seedy places after dark gave them some isolation. Some people driving by may have thought they saw a flash of white, of moonglow, in the dark, but then they put their eyes back on the road. Some people wondered if they were just hearing kids setting off leftover fireworks in the most inappropriate place this side of a hospital children's ward.

At one point, one of them stabs her, and Avery barely feels it. Barely notices it. The wound is gone in an eyeblink, and she snarls, tearing things apart.

They do not focus, and she notices this. They're all over the place, the three of them. She keeps waiting for --

only she's not waiting, because things are grabbing at her, turning towards Eva, stabbing at her and her packmate, and there's no time to analyze or wait for anything. She just fights. They all fight. They finish it. Avery and Javed walk to the last two twitching remains and tear and smash and destroy. Nothing twitches, anymore.

Avery hops back up. Sneakers, yoga year, her hair pulled from a ponytail and hanging straight down. She may curl it sometimes, but naturally it falls like this. Every time she shifts, it comes back to this. She beams at Eva.

"Eva!" she says. "How are you? It's been ages. Are you all right? None of them got to you, did they?" and she's walking over, to check. Something animal in her wants to paw and stroke and nuzzle and make sure Eva is unharmed, but even coming right out of battle, Avery doesn't think that would be appropriate with Ms. Illeshazy. Her brow furrows a bit in concern.

Éva Illésházy

Everything is done in a matter of heartbeats. The aftermath leaves her - yes, diminished somehow. Tired in a way that she had not been when she was running the paths at night. She can feel the snapping urge of her spine to curve inward: so slightly. The stance not one of defeat but afterburn of adrenaline.

She stands straight though. Slides on the safety and reaches back and reholsters the weapon. Which is not, unfortunately, silenced. Too much bulk to be carried while running in the park. Too much uncertainty.

A brief, hard breath out. The weapon at the small of her back, she shakes out the tails of her athletic jacket - which is dark, of course, excepting several narrow bands of reflective fabric framing the structure of the back.

"That was strange, but I'm fine," the briefest smile for Avery. Casual and perhaps a bit crisp and small and therefore quite possibly geniune though in truth one never knows. "Thank you. You as well, I think." A lilting glance upward at Javed, if he has approached. The faintest nod of recognition. Greeting, "Hello."

Silence then, a moment, the cant of her dark head as she listens to the first hint of sirens.

"Someone may have reported the gunfire, so we haven't much time. I don't know if the bullets disappeared with the - creatures, or fell - but if you could help me look just to be sure - "

Javed Anubis-Sight

Javed is a creature of courtesy and formality. It is his way, partially because it is easier to handle formal wording when you learned English academically before you learned it conversationally. Partially because as a metis, he knew it was his place to defer. And partially (mostly) to keep the bristling, roaring, rending fury underneath his skin where it can roll and twist, but not surface unless he needs it too. When he needs it to, he drops those pretenses of humanity, of cultured civilization. He becomes a destroyer and he does so without reservation or holding back in any way.

But that's not entirely true, you see. Even then, his honor and his morality holds sway. (Except of course in frenzy, but those are times he strives to avoid.) This is how he remembers to protect the kinfolk, or his packmate, or his allies when he needs to. It's why he remembers to attack the insect flying toward Eva and the one at Avery instead of just unleashing bloody clawed death at the one or the other.

And then it's finished, and he stands there, the beast on two legs with his claws still flexing and his body tensed, a low rumbling growl pushing up. A moment passes, and he's melted back to his Homid form. Avery asks how Eva is, and Javed simply says with a polite nod,

"Ms. Illeshazy."

When she asks for help in locating the bullets, the Strider nods. "Of course." And without further comment he moves to go do just that. This one tries to keep a bit of distance from kinfolk, at least when the battle has just ended. It's for the best, really.

Avery Chase

It's so unfair. That after all that, Avery is so energetic, so untouched, just as bouncy as she was the beginning of the night. It's like nothing happened at all. She doesn't look tired. Her eyes are still bright. She's ready to go for a run.

It's really stupidly unfair.

"Of course," she says, and digs her phone out of the handy pocket built into the small of her back on her tank. Good for running. She turns on the LED flashlight, beaming happily. She's helping!

"Those were disgusting," she mentions, of the bugs, as she starts hunting in the grass for any bullets.

[perception + alertness!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Avery Chase

[And then Avery found all the bullets ever and everyone went for ice cream THE END.]

the nameless house

wake

It is the dream. It is the dream it is always the dream the dream moves and the dream opens and the dream grows and the dream lives and the dream breathes and the dream beats like a drum and the dream does not change.

Except when they change it.

--

It is always winter here. Spring and spring and the sense of summer young and warm in the air when they wake whereever they wake but it is winter here. The sky is painted with the thinnest edge of light that is either dying or dawning, and snow spits from desultory clouds clotting the sky.

--

This is where they are.

Melantha tackles the boy-named-Jack and the boy from her dreams is the boy from the smiling photograph attached to the folded box where the occasional patron tosses in the odd bit of change. She tackles him to the ground and I miss you she whispers and

I miss everything, he whispers back.

He is crying, too.

Melantha can taste his tears.

--

Tamsin waves and Tamsin tells stories and Tamsin wants to feel his heart: how is it beating, what is its speed, how fast does it pound, and Tamsin is in a strange place with a strange taste on her tongue and George Eldred is gone and down below two young men emerge from a house (a white house) onto a sidewalk (a gray sidewalk) and somehow the morning light is gone. Somehow the morning is gone.

Somehow the morning,

shifts.

Two young men are coming out of a house, they are named Thomas and they are named Erich and they hear a young woman shouting:

"GEORGE ELDRED!" a beat. "GEORGE?" another beat. Lonely: "ERICH MELANTHA KEISHA."

from up above.

--

And then there is one young man.

The other is gone. The other is gone and the morning is gone and there is a kind of

movement

in the ground beneath them.

Something slithering to wakefulness, somehow beneath the skin of everything. Everything. Everything.

--

"Did you feel that?" The boy asks Melantha, stilling abruptly. His breath is warm against her skin. "It's waking up."

Erich

Erich has run down that street a hundred times, or at least a few dozen. He has run down that slope and seen the woods and seen Melantha there ahead of time so so so so so frustratingly many times, and sometimes he sees someone ahead of him and sometimes he sees someone beside him and sometimes he sees none of them except the woods, the smoke, Melantha.

It is different. Tonight is different from all other nights. Tonight is different because there is Melantha, there is the woods, there is someone beside him and then the someone-beside-him is gone; there is someone ahead of him and the someone-ahead-of-him is Tamsin. None of that is why, though. Tonight is different because:

Melantha is there

and Erich does not wake

and Erich's dream-brother is there too. Melantha tackles him and hugs him or maybe just tackles him to the ground; Erich is too far away to see. And Erich does not wake.

A ferocious joy and anticipation bursts in his Ahroun's heart. He bursts out of his skin, quite literally: hits the ground on four paws, a big shaggy dapple-furred wolf that lopes, that bursts down the slope at full tilt. He rushes past Tamsin, uttering a low urgent joyful bark, does not pause to see if the Fianna follows or not. That is Melantha there, and she has not disappeared and he has not awoken. So he runs. He runs as fast as his legs can carry him, down the slope, past that dreadful house, toward one of his two best friends in the whole wide world and toward the boy who said he was his brother.

Melantha

Somewhere between leaping upon him and dragging him down and something waking, Melantha's tackle turns into a strange embrace. She is holding him, little boy Jack who is in a coma, and she knows now he's not one of her brothers, he's not hers at all, but still she misses him. And he misses everything. She cries, too, soft, soundless, and sniffs roughly as her arms shift around him.

On the breeze she hears her name echoing, and Erich's. Her spine tenses, and she props herself on one elbow, her other arm still holding Jack in case he vanishes. Or tries to. He speaks; she looks at him, taking a breath. "What is it?" she asks him, like he knows.

She hasn't seen Erich yet, but soon enough she hears paws thundering against the ground and flinches, grabs Jack closer. "Stay, stay," she tells him, urgently, begging. "I won't let anything hurt you. I promise. I think --"

but she doesn't know. This is a dream, and she can't promise that the wolf that looks like Erich isn't going to hurt them.

Tamsin

Up on the rise, then, before The House, ax for chopping wood in hand but no more nice old man. The house is the house where the dead go, where nobody goes except for sometimes the boy, the house she coaxed George Eldred into bringing her to -- and then he died. He died out there he died like a real person dies he died for good. Who knows how real people die? They don't even know. They're dead. That's nothing.

Tamsin's moon is waning, always, dragging her toward the dark of things, dragging her toward the shadow,

and what does she do, the Galliard-girl? The Fianna-wolf? Does she shed her own young woman's shape to race past the house to the kinfolk she hadn't noticed yet, there in the wood-dark? Notices now with an Ahroun trailing exuberance, clutching someone or something; can she really see from where she is on the rise? Is that a boy?

THE boy, maybe?

The existence of a THE BOY might decide her against going into the house immediately; something is moving under the ground. Good! Good! Move! Whatever you are! Yelling-thing, maybe! Tamsin stomps the ground back. Threat threat threat.

What does she do, other than menace the ground, stomp stomp STOMP enough of that stupid GROUND? Tamsin does follow Erich's general trajectory, but she only looks to see where he went, to get a better look at Melantha and the boy in the kinwoman's arms, to call, "Hey! Do you need me? Because I swore I was going in and so I am!"

And so she does and so she will.

wake

"It's waking up." Jack tells Melantha again, more urgently this time. His breath is harsh and his heart beats fast and his name is something else. Something else something else something else but they call him

Jack.

And there's resistance in his arms, resistance in his body, resistance in his blood when she clasps him close, sudden stiff and also yearning, stubborn, mulish.

And there's this kindling fear in his eyes that has nothing to do with the wolf loping toward them over snowdusted pineneedles, nothing to do with the girl with the moon-dark eyes stomping the thing moving beneath the ground. Everything to do with that ripple that seems to shake and shudder and expand out from some impossibly defined center-of-purpose and,

yes,

that house.

Where the dead go.

--

"It won't hurt me," the boy is still twisting in Melantha's arms, trying to get up but he isn't running away and he isn't scared of any old wolf, no matter how big and bad it appears to be. This is a dream and he knows the dream, knows every pattern of it, every cranny and every nook, and there's this quietly grim assurance when he makes that declaration, which is not at all like the declaration of a boy's bravado, but rather something darker and grim and knowing, see. It won't hurt him.

It will hurt everyone, everyone, else.

"You should go." He tells Melantha, turning into her, urgency in his voice. He means it. "You should all go. I know you're sleeping. I know you're just sleeping so maybe you can wake up. Maybe it won't even remember - "

See? Melantha he's not running, the boy Jack, The Boy Jack, there is not the tension in his body to run, but he is half-rising in her arms, getting himself to his feet, turning with a quick breath to take in Tamsin and Erich-wolf loping over the rise.

"You should all go. Wake up. Run. Run."

Erich

Erich-wolf,

who looks big and shaggy and yes, rather bad(ass), though the big stupid floppy-tongued grin he's wearing detracts a bit from that,

has by now reached Melantha-and-the-boy. He skids to a stop, paws flinging up bits of grass and detritus. His tail is wagging ferociously side to side, he stamps his paws and bounds around girl-and-boy and over their totem link -- if indeed they still have a totemlink here -- there is a vague running commentary, a sense of see! see, i told you i'd find you! i told you we were sharing a dream! even if he's never actually told her any of that. Also a sense of brother! that's my dream-brother! that's my dream-brother and you know him too, and now we're together, and and and and

happy! Lots of happy. Erich-wolf bounds and bounds and rubs his heavy sides against the two and seems quite unbothered by his dream-brother telling him to run, and someone's talking about coma and someone else is talking about going inside and Erich really has no fucking idea what is going on except that he's found Melantha, he has, he's so smart, he found her.

He comes to a stop, standing beside Melantha. He is a large wolf, adult but still young enough to remember puppyhood and adolescence. His withers come to her waist. He is a hot, breathing, muscular mass leaning so heavily against her that he could bowl her over if she's not careful. His tongue lolls; his eyes -- pale blue even in this form -- blink amiably up at her. He does not seem about to run anywhere.

Melantha

Melantha is curled up on the earth, holding Jack-the-boy closely, tightly, both because she thinks he might run away and because she does not know if this wolf pounding towards them will hurt the boy.

Erich sees it in her eyes again, something he hasn't seen for a year, more than a year now: that savagery, that ferocity that gleams in her blue eyes, the way she looked when she talked of burying some motherfucker in the Senate. But it's not that gleeful destruction of the Wyrm and its influence now. It's something else, protective and powerful, as though every ounce of the energy he saw when she was screaming drunkenly in the woods could and would be turned on him if it meant that the little dream-boy in her arms might be okay, might be safe. She'd burn up the world. Her ancestors would be proud.

She might kick him in the face. Which would actually hurt.

--

But he gets closer, and he's wagging his tail sososososososososohappilyYAY and she hears him in her mind the way she often hears him. He's so proud and ridiculous and SEE I TOLD YOU and she blinks and a weird smile twists over her lips, lopsided and wonky. He's all but bouncing on his paws as he comes closer, rubbing against her side, but she's trying to counter what he's saying with what she can hear, out loud, from Jack-the-boy.

She's on the ground, and Erich's fur is warm, and he's more likely looking down at her than up, but no matter. She looks at Jack, still holding way too tightly, but she doesn't trust him at all because he's a kid and also a boy. She blinks at him. He knows they're sleeping. He keeps talking about 'it' and she's not sure now if he's talking about Erich -- it won't hurt me -- or something else entirely,

it won't even remember.

"Jack," she calls him, as he's rising. She loosens a bit, still holding, getting up with him because damned if she's letting go now. "Look, you have to slow down and act like I'm dumb or something. You know what's going on here but none of us do. So share with the class and tell me what's going on or I'm going to hold onto you and we're staying right here and I guess then we're all screwed, you hear me?"

And for Erich, who she momentarily puts her hand on top of as she's getting to her feet:

sorry I totally just used your back for leverage. HI.

Erich

it's totally cool you could probably even ride on my back if you wanted to just make sure you sit up near my shoulderblades or else you might give me swayback HI.

That is what Erich-wolf thinks back at Melantha. And then, since she's on her feet, he leans against her side. And is heavy and overwarm and generally very happy to see everyone. Also: ears perking upright, all listening-like.

Tamsin

"Ugh," Tamsin says, like there's blood in her throat and she's got to cough it out. She isn't happy; she's still holding the ax for chopping up wood in her hand, like she'd even know how to use it with any sort of precision, like something that's more've a weapon doesn't sleep in her bones.

The house where the dead go has a door or a window or a gap through which to crawl; that's where Tamsin is, having drifted while listening hard for an answer.

The boy wants them to run because something's not going to hurt him but it'll hurt them and he knows they're just sleeping and --

This isn't the time for questions, but it's always the time for questions. Tamsin says, "Is it yours? Didja find it first?"

Eldred said the boy does what he wants here. Tamsin's thinking that maybe an imaginary friend got too attached; became something more than imaginary, shaped itself up and out; Tamsin's thinking -- oh, she doesn't know.

"You gonna be upset when it gets hurt?"

wake

"It's not mine." Says Jack-the-Boy to Tamsin-the-Wolf, this defensive edge to his tone. He and Melantha are both on their feet now and she's still holding on to him, fiercely, and Tamsin has an axe and somehow something in her hands remembers how to use an axe and Erich is a wolf and the boy is also his brother,

the sun splashed floorboards. The bright joy of waking every morning to the sounds of a full homestead humming all around.

Here they are at the edge of the dark wood, the boarded up and boarded-over clapboard house all derelict on this rise looking down over the town, with its marching rows of white houses and its silent windows and its wisps of smoke and its old sort of solid dereliction.

" - not mine exactly," the boy hedges, glancing from Melantha to Tamsin to the wolf and back again. "It was already here. It was always here. I found it when I was - " There is a kind of interrupted passion there, an urgency, but then an abrupt cessation of that animation, and instead he whispers,

" - when we were dying. I held on and held their hands so they wouldn't go they said they wouldn't go they said they said they said but it came and it took them and it takes everyone and everyone and I want them to stay here with me but it takes them all and shreds them to pieces and grinds them up in its teeth and I told the old lady that we should burn them when they pass over so it couldn't have them but it calls them anyway

"even when it's sleeping.

" - and now it's waking up.

"It lives in the house. In the basement of the house. I hear it inside my head.

"It wants you. It wants all of you.

"But I don't want you to go."

Erich

Okay so there's a limit to how much one can convey as a wolf, at least when one is attempting to converse with non-wolves. And that limit is essentially: you get the basics across. You get across that you are happy! or you are angry! or you are frightened! or you are worried! or you are hungry! but the details, the subtleties: that is lost.

So: Erich gives up on being-a-wolf. One moment he is leaning against Melantha, his tail still waggingwaggingwagging and his tongue still lolling, and the next

he is changing, he is shifting, he is briefly HUGE AND MONSTROUS and then he is just Erich. Pushing up off his hands, dusting his palms off as he stands up. Now he's a lot taller than the boy, and taller than Melantha too, who he immediately puts his arm around and squeezes against his side. Because yay. Because he found her.

"Lots of stuff want to shred me and grind me up and stuff," he says to his not-brother. "So far none's succeeded. Though I suppose if someone succeeded I wouldn't be standing here, so that's kind of a moot point. Still.

"I don't think we should run away. I think we should stay and fight. 'Cause if we run, it'll just catch up to us. I mean that's what I do to like, rabbits that run from me when I'm hungry.

"What's your story, anyway? You said you were my brother but I don't think you are. No offense; I think you'd be a great brother."

Melantha

By now Melantha has noticed Tamsin, farther away, at a... house? that Melantha has never seen before. Her brow stitches for a moment at the axe Tamsin holds, and her hand rests on the boy's shoulder where they stand. When he mentions dying, she looks down at him, though. Tamsin and Erich can take care of themselves. Melantha can take care of herself.

Jack is just a kid. And he is talking about his family dying, and how they tried to hold on, and 'it' took them. She looks from Jack to Erich, and her eyes are sharp and intelligent and she is piecing this together from her own dreams and from her own thoughts on death and dying and what happens in the underworld.

Erich shifts. Melantha is hugged, but she is distracted; her mind does that to her, goes into overdrive, pushes everything else down and away. She doesn't reject the hug, she just looks down at Jack after Erich is done talking and tells him:

"This is what we do, Jack," she says, and she is starting to let him go. She says 'we' and not 'they', not Tamsin and Erich. But then: "Tamsin and Erich, more than me, at least when it comes to going into basements and fighting things that sleep and things that eat and tear apart.

"But I'll stay with you, if you want. And if it takes Erich and Tamsin and grinds them up in its teeth, we'll figure something else out." There is a beat. "I'm really smart. So I'll stay with you, if you want."

Tamsin

The ground hasn't moved again; maybe it's waking up slowly, like a giant wakes; like the Wyrm probably woke the first time, in increments, stretching itself up against this thing called Creation, curiously --

or maybe it felt that stomp stomp stomp and rightfully settled down. So there. The Fianna-girl lifts her chin at that exactly like uh huh see, and Tamsin was an only child, had to be an only child, but there's still something siblingesque about that knowing look.

But then the sad story;

and it is a sad story.

"Do you really want to stay here forever? Do you really want us to stay forever? Did you bring us here?"

"This place isn't good for people. The thing waking in the basement might be bad, too, but this place - it's amazing if I'm understanding right; but do you really want it?"

wake

Dice: 15 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 11 )

wake

"If you wake up," the boy is informing Erich quite seriously when he says that if they run it will follow, it will harry, the way Erich himself harries rabbits, " - it can't follow. It can't find you during the daytime. It can't find you when your eyes are open.

"That's why I wanted waking-people. I saw you drifting by and I stitched you in because I thought you'd stay. I thought you could all be here and be there too because here wasn't the only place left for you to be."

Then Erich asks him, what's your story and Jack gives him a very odd and very adult look.

"I'm dying. Everyone here is except for you and you and you. Your friends woke up. I bet they won't come back. They took themselves out, see. They unstitched the stitch I made inside their ears and took themselves away. But everyone else - "

Jack the Boy gives Tamsin a look. A Look, and he shakes his head rather fiercely, and somehow in the midst of all this his hand has found Melantha's and his grip tightens in hers.

"I don't want to stay here forever but I can't go anywhere else and I want people here it's terrible when you're alone and there's nothing, all the houses empty and no one to hear you so you don't even know if you can hear yourself and I did bring you here I thought you'd stay I thought you wouldn't die I saw you at the edges and I brought you over and stitched you in.

"I thought you'd stay. I thought - "

Then he glances back at Melantha. "It won't hurt me. It can't hurt me. I don't want you to go. But I don't want you to - "

There is a deep shudder below the earth. Something liquid to the movement. A certain concavity and ahead of them the house with the boarded over windows and the boarded over doors shudders and half-collapses, like a man falling to his knees, sinking into the earth.

Something - oh, oozes from the ruin. Black, oleaginous, hungry. So filthy it was never meant to see the light of day.

Melantha

[willpower!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )

Tamsin

[wp]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 5, 5) ( fail )

Erich

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 6, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Melantha

Melantha holds Jack's hand. Of course she holds his hand, she would never let go. She holds him tightly, just as tightly as he holds her. He doesn't want to say, and he can't -- she wants to interrupt and tell him he can, he can, one day, but maybe not she's not a doctor -- so she takes a breath. She squeezes him back.

She looks down at him. "First: "

There's nothing after that. The ground erupts, shakes, and Melantha's head is pounding suddenly, like icepicks jammed in her ears. Her eyes fly wide, her free hand grabbing at her skull but her other hand only holding Jack tighter. She gives a shake, bracing her legs, grasping mentally for Volcano, hoping it can hear her, which it must -- she holds her footing and holds onto Jack and does not fall. She looks toward the house, toward the ooze, her mouth and eyes wide open.

Erich --

but really, what is she going to say? That's the Wyrm, kill it. God, please, kill it. Do what your mother told you. There aren't words for it. That's just the feeling that pulses at him through that bond they share with Charlotte. Go, go, please, be good.

Melantha grips Jack's hand and steps closer to him, moves closer. "Your family is trying to help you and get you out of here, Jack," she tells him, though there's a faint trickle of blood in one of her ears and they're ringing and her voice is too loud. "We'll get you out of here. You won't be alone."

Erich

Now that.

was not.

okay.

It's bad enough that whatever shook the earth damn near knocks Erich off his feet -- and, in fact, knocks Tamsin off her feet. Look at her: there she goes, up on the hill near the Scary House. It's bad enough that whatever shook the earth REALLY HURT HIS FUCKING EARS, made them actually literally bleed the way we think our ears are gonna bleed when we hear something awful. That's all bad and awful and whatnot, but

whatever shook the earth also. made. Melantha's ears bleed. And that is just NOT FUCKING KOSHER, the way it was NOT FUCKING KOSHER when those weird gross dudes down in Baja came and snuck up on the tinyhouse where he and Charlotte were living and were spying on them with binoculars and we're digressing.

The point is: it's not okay. And Erich is totally not okay with it. And Melantha is sort of thinking hey go deal with it omg but really she hardly needs to because Erich has both hands over his ears and he's kind of just yelling, just bellowing wordless WTF-rage, and then:

and then he's really wish he had a hammer or a cinderblock or something to throw. And also: something to throw it all. Since he has neither, he grabs Melantha and the boy and kinda gives them each a squeeze on the shoulder that says nothing and says everything. Then he turns and pops into his wolf shape again and goes running up the hill toward Tamsin, and toward the house.

"Wait! If you're going in, I'm going with you!"

Tamsin

Tamsin's gaze shades to something pitying, perhaps, something understanding, something that wants to salvage the boy, wants to know more about what happened and why, what courage it took and what courage it didn't, where the line is drawn, where the mystery is held, the why of it and the heart of it. And of course there's still the smoulder-coal knot of something furious, within, something that is furious not Rageful. Her hand is shielding her eyes as if there's light falling from above, getting into them, and she opens her mouth to say something and

the earth shifts again, greater than before, much greater, and she falls hard on her ass, bruises the bone deep and loses her grip on the axe and the scary house has begun to collapse in on itself, sink further into the ground, the ground yawning up like a grave and this black ichorous ooze bubbling out splashing out and Erich's running

if you're going in I'm going with you

and Tamsin's shifting, because that's just fine; because it seems that now is a time to fight, to go into the house where only death go, to snap at the shadow-filth pouring out and go and go and go and go

and go for its filthy fucking death-taking

heart.

wake

And they

wake

up.

Friday night.

Erich

So Erich is in the Santa Fe Arts District again, and it is in fact Third Friday so the area is swamped with pedestrians and all the art galleries are open but what does a meatheaded Ahroun from Nebraska know about art anyway.

So instead he is at the whimsically named mmm...COFFEE!, which advertises itself as some sort of paleo cafe, which is perhaps not exactly the sort of place one imagines a meatheaded Ahroun to frequent either. But nonetheless there he is: out on the small patio, making that wrought-iron patio set he's occupying seem small with his blond-blue-tanned-muscled-ness, a plate of chicken and a hot chocolate keeping him company.

Also his phone. It is set on the tabletop; he is hunched over it, grinning in that private way people grin when they are terribly amused by whoever it is they are texting, tapping rather nimbly with his fingertips as he neglects his food.

Eva

Something slightly more formal is happening across the street. The occasional town car sleeks up to the door and the occasional grandee slides out in evening or cocktail attire. Some of the patrons spill out the front doors of what otherwise seems to be an unfinished space, and they both stand out from and blend into the Third Fridays crowd. Somehow it looks like the point of confluence of two rivers, one shallow and silty and slow, the other deep, swift-moving, clarified. The punch-and-swirl of it.

--

But Erich does not notice. He's on his phone, grinning, and may be taken by surprise when Eva lets herself in the small metal gate leading to the fenced in patio, and stops at his table, one hand braced on it, leaning over a bit -

"Erich. Do you mind if I join you?"

The briefest pause.

"Just for a moment."

Erich

He is, indeed, taken by surprise -- that sharp animal up-snap of his head, the grin frozen by startlement and then regaining its footing. His eyebrows have climbed halfway to his hairline.

"Whoa," he says, presumably of the dress.

Eva

There is about her a certain patient didacticism. An impassive query in the lilt of her brows.

"I did not mean to startle you, but I cannot tell if that is a yes or a no."

Erich

"Oh!" And he sits up, busies himself with -- tidying up? making the area presentable? In the end all he manages to do is rearrange plate and cup and then extend his foot under the table to kick the other chair out for her. "Yeah, sure. Of course. Sit down."

There are a few surreptitious glances around, as though perhaps he were afraid (or maybe hoping) he might be mistaken for her date. Or maybe he's looking for her actual date. Or maybe he's wondering where her kids are. Perhaps it's the last, because then he asks:

"Where are your kids?"

Eva

"I stashed them in the truck of the limo." She takes the seat with a certain grace and allows her bemusement over his business in the tidying up (?) to show through, but seems almost entirely - straightforward - in the disposition of her children.

"They'll be fine, don't you think? Just for a few hours."

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

Erich

Erich. Looks. Horrified.

"Uh," he says -- clearly flailing for the most diplomatic way to say this, "well, at least it's nighttime so it's probably ... not too hot in there? But you might want to go let them out. Like, soon. Like, before they die."

Eva

"Sound advice, Erich." This quick-sliding smile crests her mouth, and is gone as quickly as it came. "Thank you.

"I will see to it as soon as we finish our chat."

Erich

"Wait," all squint-eyed, "they're not really in the trunk, are they. Oh, duh," the penny fairly crashes down, "it's not like you'd go to a black tie party with kids in tow. Man, you're a convincing liar. I guess that's a good thing."

He's practically having the conversation all by himself. He stops; he pushes his plate of half-eaten chicken toward her in instinctive offering. You share your kill with the kin; that is what you do. Even if the 'kill' was recently bought from a paleo cafe.

"How've you been, anyway? I haven't dropped by to get food from your office very much lately."

Eva

Erich tells Eva that she is a really good liar. She does not point out the contrapuntal idea: that he is an especially gullible young man, in part because she does not believe it. The smile that coiled across her mouth settles in again.

No response to his question about how she's been; instead, "Good. You had the support staff in an uproar. Passive-aggressive notes about missing pepperoni sticks and gogurt for weeks. Rhonda Porter started keeping her cheese slices in her desk, but locked them into a file drawer and the smell - "

Poker face.

"So if you need food, it would be best if you brought me a list.

"Or my assistant, Richard. He is kin as well."

The most minute pause. Then:

"How involved are your plans this evening?"

Erich

"I don't need food," Erich is a tiny bit insulted at the assumption, "I'm a wolf. I can get my own food. It was just fun to go down there and see what you guys were munching on. The gogurt wasn't me though. Or the cheese slices! I only took meat."

Obviously.

"My plans?" He looks bemused. Amused, as well. "Well, I don't really have any. I'm just hanging out here. My one packmate is doing theurge-y stuff and my other is at work. So it's just me. Why?"

Eva

"Then perhaps you were not the source of office strife."

An arch of her brows.

"Your plans?"

Erich

"What, like specifically?" He thinks a moment. "I'm gonna eat my chicken and drink my hot chocolate and then maybe wander around a bit and not understand any of the art they're showing. Then I was gonna go home."

And again, "Why?"

Eva

"There's a man in that gallery I think you should track, and perhaps kill, instead.

"His skin is too hot.

"And where his collar rubs his neck, the skin has come away. A hint of green, beneath.

"If you follow me across the street, I'll go back inside and make sure you know the one I mean."

Erich

"Oh."

And that is the only answer for a while: a simple oh ripe with all the connotations of ohs spoken from Garou to their watchful kin. Erich's fingertips drum on the wrought-iron surface of the cafe table for a second. Then:

"Okay, well, lemme eat my chicken and then we'll go."

--

So that is what happens. He eats his chicken -- quickly, he doesn't dawdle -- and then he drinks his hot chocolate and then he kinda rumples everything up and disposes of the disposables and sets the plates atop the trash can to be collected.

They cross back toward the gallery. Not together; that would look too weird. Eva goes first, and she slips back into that exclusive-looking party of hers, all swooping necklines and bare shoulders and satin lapels and diamond cufflinks. Erich loiters around outside and tries not to look too suspicious, though already the doorman is casting him stink-eyed looks, but he doesn't have to stay long.

Just long enough for Eva to indicate the man,

mark the kill.

--

She does not see her much younger tribesman for quite some time after that. Actually, she does not see him again for the remainder of the party. She doesn't see him when she goes to her car, either, whether it's her everyday car or, in fact, a limousine. She doesn't see the man she pointed out either, the hot-skinned creature whose hide was beginning to split to reveal true horror beneath. In fact, she will never see that man again.

--

She does, however, see him before the night is entirely over. When she has left the party. When she has gone home. Just before she actually enters her house, that is when she sees him, sitting at her curb, keeping a respectful distance away from her front door and the young souls that sleep within. Headlights sweep him out of the darkness. He stands up as her car pulls to the curb, or into the garage.

He looks no worse for the wear. Maybe a little scuffed. Maybe a little -- calmer, is that the word for it? The moon is still so, so close to the full. Calmer is not the word for it. But a little more settled, not quite the crackling, heavy presence of before.

He waves at her. Foolish thing; no subtlety at all.

Eva

He wants to finish his chicken. She favors him with this quietly thoughtful glance as he does, warmer than you might imagine. Something concealed but searching about her eyes as she makes him in that space, that patio, the edge to him; and the youth; and strange and strangely bare simplicity.

Says nothing, though.

There is nothing to say.

--

And: there is no limosine, just a quietly expensive Lexus parked down a quietly expensive sidestreet with a quietly expensive handgun hidden thoughtfully beneath the dash.

After the soirée, Éva is eager to get back to the Lexus and the weapon quietly hidden inside. She is always armed, except when she is dressed as she was tonight,

and then she feels naked.

--

Much, much later, a suburb. Quiet streets. Dark houses. The low hum of the engine, the sweep of the headlights. The shadow of the mountains against the sky.

She sees him, of course.

Cuts him a glance, the edge of it lilting-fine.

One rises above the curved leather of the steering wheel as she makes the turn into the gated drive.

Is she returning the wave?

Perhaps; though he will never know.

She could have just been turning the wheel.